5 Simple Ways to Increase Your Confidence

Welcome back to the She's Crafted to Thrive podcast. I'm so excited because this episode is brought to you, aka from your girl Keita, from a live video that I did on Instagram. And on that video, I was talking about this moment of understanding about confidence in our ability to create results. And It came upon my understanding and awareness even more from my little Shih Tzu Zoe. So if you don't know, I have a 2-year-old Shih Tzu, which is a Shih Tzu and, um, poodle mix. She's amazing. She brings so much joy to our lives, and she tells her own story however it is, her own way. And the things just she has learned through her little two tiny years of life has taught me so much about so many different things. One, about my loving and amazing Creator. Two, about the amazing, um, the amazing uniqueness in every single creature. Like, there is no other Zoe, you know what I'm saying? Like, there's not gonna be another Zoe, just like there's not gonna be another Nikita There's not another Maurice, my husband. We're all so unique. And I have found such, you know, profound gratitude in that, realizing that we don't need to strive to be anyone else except ourselves. And that is what matters. And we can become better versions of ourselves. We can become more resilient. We can become We can tap in more, tap into more of our strengths. There are so many different cool things about us that we so often like leave to the wits and just say, oh, these were happenstance. Like this was not intentional. This, this talent I have, this gift I have was not really, it just kind of happened. It's these different kinds of things that as I grow as a person, as I grow in what I do as a coach, as I connect more deeply and more authentically with those around me and what is happening around me. I'm just so thankful for the opportunity to see the uniqueness in all of the things that we experience, you know what I'm saying? So what I wanted to share with you is One, embrace your uniqueness. It's your pace is your pace. Your growth is your growth. Your not so great times is not— are your not so great times. And you get to learn how you are going to either grow through them or not, you know, and it's not a comparison game to a previous you or future you or to so-and-so and such-and-such. And this comes so full circle with this live that I'm sharing with you that I did on Instagram. And I have thought about recently, like, I really should share with you all some of the content that I create on my Instagram that you may not even get a chance to look at or listen to, um, that is so powerful that can serve you. So on, on, on this Instagram Live that you're about to hear, I'm sharing a experience and a lesson that I've learned about Zoe, or from Zoe, about confidence. So if it sounds a little bit different, that's what you're hearing. Um, you're hearing me like talk as if I'm doing it live because I was. And if you want to see the image and the things that I'm talking about, I'm actually going to have them in the show notes so you can take a look. So you can go to the website and see what I'm talking about, um, when it comes to what has happened and what I have learned about Zoe. And so if you are struggling finding confidence and feeling or finding clarity or even finding the capacity to see how you can create or recreate results you've done before in the past, this episode is for you. You know, um, I recently had a client, we were talking and she said something to me and I just thought it was so profound. And I think when you go through a journey of growing your business, growing, whether you have a business or not, if you're going through the journey of connecting with yourself and learning the different pros and cons of your personality and seeing how you can adjust them, how you can grow and change in a way that's actually to your fullest potential, when you can identify your strengths and your weaknesses and not beat yourself up, you know, be a witness to who you are and be open to the fact that, yes, that's who— a part of who you are now, but you're a work in progress. We're all works in progress. As clients said, you know, I have loved every version of myself, but this version of me, I especially love. And I was just so touched by that. And I feel like I'm at that place as well. But I— if you haven't had that thought, I want you to think about it. I want you to think about Have you loved every version of you? And if you haven't, no judgment. But how can you start loving yourself a bit more in the sense of not beating yourself up, not having these negative Nelly words, not leaving things that you think just happen like as a, um, oh, you're lucky or you're fortunate kind of deal. Think about the intentionality of what lessons you've learned along your journey and how that's helped build the fabric of who you are in a way, you know? So anyway, I can't wait for you to listen in to this episode. Um, this little, it's literally like, I think 10 or 15 minutes and you'll get the whole point, but please listen all the way through and make sure you visit the show notes because you'll be able to see the cuteness of the Zoe. And I think I might be able to embed a video.

I don't know.

I'm going to try. But all of the gems on how you can feel more confident and tap into the things you have done and what you are doing to build your confidence. So stay tuned. You're listening to the She's Crafted to Thrive podcast, and this is your host Nikita Williams. On this show, we're talking about what it's like to start grow and scale a business while living with chronic illness. You will hear from other creatives and CEOs as they share their stories and the lessons that led them to learn to lean more into what works for them. You'll discover that success does not mean perfection, and fear, negative thoughts, and challenges are all a part of the journey, but there is always an abundance of wins. So stay tuned and you'll find the inspiration and tools you need to craft a life and business that thrives.

So, uh, confidence. We're talking about confidence today, and in my stories I posted a picture of me and Zoe, who by the way is like Instagram famous or something. We have— I posted something of her the other day and she looked super cute doing what she's doing. But I'm here to talk to you guys about how this dog has taught me a bit about confidence and how it translates into us living with chronic illness and growing a business. And so there is a little bit of a story, so bear with me. If you're watching the replay, hello. And if you're here, hello Katiana or Katina, welcome. And one of the things I really help my clients to realize and recognize and stepping into empowerment mode of how important their confidence is, like how important it is even in their healing journey of living with chronic illness. Like, because it's an ongoing process. Like with me living with, um, chronic illness, living with endometriosis and fibromyalgia, where how I experience it now is completely different from what I experienced it before. And most of that reason is because of having the confidence to know I have certain tools versus being in this constant like flight of thought of being afraid that I don't know what is going on, I don't know what's happening, I don't— I can't trust my body, all of these different things. And so this is something that's tied to how we show up in our marketing online, how we run our business, how we make decisions, especially now that we're in a season where a lot of people are trying to decide how they're going to spend their money in their business because of the way cost and inflation is happening and how the recession is potentially happening and all of these different things and how it affects your business and your life, especially your healthcare, especially if you're living with chronic illness. This is a constant thing, like, we don't want to do anything that can jeopardize our health. And to me, the most important thing that we really can work on to help cope and heal and thrive doing a really big change in environment outside of our bodies is to work on our mindset. Um, a lot of things happen at the beginning the beginning of 2019 or 2020 with the pandemic, and some people were not equipped, right? They were not equipped to figure out— or they weren't confident. That's really the word. They weren't confident in how they could deal with the pressures of what they experienced through this last 2 and a half years. And I find that all of my warriors out there who have chronic illness, we are very well equipped in a lot of different ways. I found for myself, and I used to have these chats with women and other people inside of like different communities of chronic illness warriors who we weren't as afraid of the pandemic as the rest of the world in the degree of being prepared. We were already confident in our preparedness. We had to be on our own to take care, you know, have like things for like sanitary thing. We knew the importance of keeping distance between people because we're immune compromised. We knew the importance of washing your hands. We knew the importance of all these things, and we also knew the importance that if our immune system is down or a certain way, that we need to maybe separate ourselves and be in, you know, kind of like our own personal quarantine. And so confidence is key to feel more capable, right? When you feel confident, you don't freak out, you're not as afraid, you're not as worried, you're not as overly consumed with all of the things. And for me and for the women that I love working with, to me this is one of our superpowers of resilience dealing with chronic pain. We can better articulate and deal with the pressures of what a new environment around us might be, especially when other people have not a clue. And not a clue. So confidence. So the story about my Zoe, there's a picture in my story and I was sharing— let me see if I can pull up here. I was sharing with, um, everyone. And like, there's something that she's done that I've learned from her forever that is so fascinating to me, is that she can— she can learn something one time, and it takes her a couple times to learn that one thing, right? It takes her a couple of times to be able to get it right, but the moment she gets it that one time out of trying multiple times of not getting it right, she is— it's like engraved in her head that, oh, I can just do it again, I can do it again. And that is something that I have found that is key to confidence.

So this is the picture.

I look a little crazy in this picture, no joke, but, um, I had just got on a new outfit, like a new jumpy outfit, and I was like— I had an all-day speaking and like speaking things. I was doing summits, I was doing podcast recording that day, and Zoe here was just excited that Mommy was out of the room or like had her door open and she can come in. So she has learned to jump, see that sofa and see where I am. She knows how to jump and like run into my arms. Like, it's, it's so interesting. She is a 10.5-pound Shih Tzu who is feisty as all can get out, and she has no doubt in her mind that since we did it once, she is completely confident I will catch her every single time, even though there have been times I have not caught her. Okay, and so what I have come to learn about this is that confidence comes from doing something consistently in trying and then seeing how it works. And when it works, sometimes we think it's by accident, sometimes we think it's a fluke, sometimes we are not even paying attention to, oh, this is happening because I had tweaked, tweaked, tweaked, tweaked, tweaked, or I had kept going, kept trying this thing, kept listening to my body, kept listening to what's happening in the market for my business, all of these different things. And when it works We're surprised, which is great to be surprised, but that surprise turns in doubt, turns into doubt. And something I've learned from this picture from my Zoe girl is that even if she doesn't get it right a couple of times later when she jumps on me, and if I could not even be looking at her, y'all, I could be looking, I won't even have my arms out. She will, as long as there is a ledge somewhere she jumps on and she can get to me, there is no doubt in her confident little small puppy mind that either I will catch her or she can make it, or if she falls, she's fine. She's fine. And I have always thought, like, thinking about— thinking about what she does and how she does it so well is that she doesn't allow the times that she hasn't been able to do it break her confidence, right? And I think that's the thing that all of us work on. Like, for me personally, this is a season, a different season. You know, last year, the year before, and the year now, a lot of us, you know, had different seasons in their business. And people are going through a different change right now. We— like I was talking about earlier, the economy and people's health and, um, the inflation, all these different things are affecting people's decisions to purchase or to do things. So they're taking a bit longer to make those decisions and Sometimes our confidence gets a hit by that, thinking, oh, it's because I'm doing something wrong. In actuality, it's not that you're doing anything wrong, is that people are just taking a little bit longer to make these decisions. And not only are they taking a little bit longer, they're asking more questions. And that's not because of you. It's not because you haven't been doing what you do great. It's because of their circumstance. And regardless of not knowing— like, when you first sold your first piece, or you sold your first program, or you sold whatever first time, to you it might have felt like a fluke, like, oh, it's a, it's a miracle. But to Zoe, my dog, who has no concept of, um, it being a fluke, it's, you, you better write. I know I can do that. I'm doing it, and I can do it every single time. And if I mess up the next time, I'll just try it again because I know I did it that one time. And so many of my clients, including all of of you who watch, um, and listen, you guys have sold something. You have sold something. You have consistently sold something. You may have like periods of ups and downs and lows, but you have the ability to create the results you want to see. It just might take a little bit longer. It might take a different technique. But since you figured out the first time, before you did it, before you sold something, before you stood up to that doctor at a doctor's office, before you told the doctor like, no, it's not in my head, This is how I'm feeling. I will tell you, the first time I— the first time I— let me stop the sharing of the picture. The first time I stood up for myself at a doctor's office, like for real, for real, I felt so empowered. And then the results were so very much what I thought they were. And so I had told the doctor about my endometriosis. At the time, I didn't know what it was, had never heard of it. And when I was diagnosed with it, you know, a doctor had told me that it was just, oh, you're supposed to have, you know, painful periods, painful periods. So this is before I knew it was endometriosis and before I thought it was something else. And I remember I had been seeing this doctor for a very long time, and I always felt like when I would go, it was like she would even say— she would even say, and yes, it was a woman who said this to me— oh, here's my problem child. And I just remember thinking Wow, that's, that's— I mean, I am— I don't know how I feel about that. I don't know how I feel about being your problem child and you're my doctor. Hey, Tanya. And so I remember one doctor's appointment where I was like, you know what, we've tried all of these things and I feel like we need to have like exploratory surgery because I think something else is going on. And the doctor said to me, she's like, I don't, I don't think that's necessarily necessary because it's just all the things we're doing, you know, it's probably more related to your cycle. And I was like, no, this is different. And I remember just standing my ground in that and being like so like adamant, like even though I had no idea what the answer was going to be. And, um, the doctor said, okay, well, let's get it together, let's do the schedule. We did the surgery and everything, and sure enough, this is when I was diagnosed with endometriosis. And so That became my stepping stool to speaking up and saying what I felt about my body at a doctor's office. And so in business, we need to do the same. We need to do this similarly. We need to do the same thing. When you've done something one time, yes, you might have to do it differently in a way, but know and have confidence that you have the capability of doing it again because you figured it out the first time. And I need this reminder for myself today. I hope this was a reminder to you, but confidence comes from the action. Confidence comes from recognizing what you have accomplished. Confidence comes from being open to learn more and doing action in the learning. And I find that that's something we all need to work more on because it would help us in both of our healing journey as well as our businesses. So that's just another little life lesson of, um, Zoe teaching me things about confidence. This little dog has taught me a lot of different things about life and just how we view things. And the trust she has in me is crazy because I am an imperfect person. And so, um, If a dog can have faith like that, or just trust, right? It's really trust because she, she's experienced it before. Then I definitely can. And all of the tools that I have put into my bucket to help me grow and all of the things that I lean on, I can have trust in those things because they've showed up for me before and I've seen the actions and the results of those things before. And so this is really just a reminder that you're not alone and you can do it. You can totally do it. And confidence is the gap, right? Confidence is the gap that you need in order to create more momentum and growth in your business and confidence in your ability to grow and move forward. So I hope this was helpful. Um, thanks for joining me. And if you're watching the replay, please put hashtag replay and I will chat with you guys later. Bye.

All right, y'all, that's a wrap.

Thank you for listening.

And I hope this conversation inspired you. Be sure to visit craftedtothrive.com to check out our show notes, connect with our guests, and grab some of those goodies. Join us for the next episode. And in the meantime, remember, yes, yes, yes, you are crafted to thrive.